Role Models
by Ember Nickel
Summary: For myownmuggle as part of Summer Wishlists 2012 on rarepair shorts: prompt "What might have been..."


"Well? How was work?"

Oliver rolled his eyes but smiled—the routine never got old. Or, rather, it had been old to start with, but it was still funny. "It has its ups and downs. And yours?"

"The same, but I can't go saying too much." But that time around, there was a little more of a smile on Cedric's face—was he hiding something?

Oliver pressed the point. "You play for _Chudley, _I don't think giving a way a secret could hurt any worse."

"_Oy. _That wasn't necessary."

He shrugged, serving himself another helping of pasta. "So. _Is _there anything new?"

"At work, or in general?"

"In general."

"Er, not yet."

"Not _yet_?"

"The...er...magazine may be coming out soon."

"What magazine?"

"The magazine that—we went over this."

"Did we?"

"_Yes, _and you weren't paying attention."

Oliver shrugged.

"Here, they have some mockup drafts." Cedric walked down to the closet and retrieved a folded wad of paper. The photographed Cedric in the page winked at Oliver, who dubiously flipped it over to see a larger-sized photograph. This next Cedric had taken off his shirt to reveal the horseshoe-shaped scar he'd picked up in the battle at Hogwarts.

"What's the matter?" Cedric asked his husband. "You've seen this before."

"Aye, but putting it in a magazine for everyone to look at?"

"Jealous, are we?" he grinned. "I'm sure I can make it up to you somehow—"

"I appreciate the gesture, but—ugh, I'm not sure how you sat still for the whole interview, what did they go on about?"

"No, you're not sure how you could sit still for the whole interview." Cedric gathered up the pages and tossed them on a coffee table. "There's a difference. And you can guess what it's about."

Oliver nodded, closing his eyes. "One part how-are-Chudley-going-to-lose-this-week. One part decent-looking-star. Three parts normal-bloke-with-a-husband-playing-Quidditch rubbish."

"Close, there's about two parts of that to three of do I have any pets or my favorite restaurants and all that. And it's not _rubbish,_Oliver, you know we're nice role models."

"Role models? There've been gay Quidditch players for ages, Melantha Huddlestone or Séaghda Stroud—"

"Stroud's from a century or two ago, only fans holed up in the archives know about him—"

"But he was statistically so underrated, just because the rest of his team wasn't very good—"

"And Huddlestone spent half her career in Vratsa."

"What's wrong with Vratsa?"

"I dunno, they're just foreign, fans like someone closer to home."

"We can _Apparate, _the matches are all on those moors in the middle of nowhere anyway."

"Whatever," said Cedric. "Nothing's new with you, is there?"

Oliver shrugged. "It's—George Weasley's birthday soon. Will you sign a card if it's from us?"

"Course. Where is it?"

"I—er—haven't written it yet."

"It's a birthday card, how hard can it—ah. George Weasley. Yes."

Oliver nodded. It was too difficult to remember the first George, the one he'd met a decade before, and it stung that leading that team was still among his happiest memories when Angelina Johnson would be killed barely a year later and Fred not too long after that.

"Look, I'll write it if you don't."

Oliver sighed. "That'd be brilliant. Thanks. I'm sorry, I don't mean to stick that on you but—"

"Come on, I have the diplomatic touch," Cedric forced a smile.

"Thank you," said Oliver, rising to give Cedric a kiss.

In no time he was signing his name, taking care and making the dot above the I a little larger than was necessary. Something to prove he was putting time into it, that it wasn't just another autograph.

"You should read the article," Cedric teased, "I might have given some tactical advice."

Oliver picked the page up, weighing it in his hands a few minutes. "No," he finally decided, "if there's anything not rubbish one of my teammates will find it when it gets published."

"Suit yourself, then."

He nodded, wandering to the wireless and turning on some Muggle music. "I just don't want to be a role model. I—I'd say something wrong, look bad, I'm not trying to represent anyone."

"And no one's asking you to!"

"But they ask you."

"But I _like_ it! Even the part about my favorite restaurants, I _like_ that sort of thing. You always read the _Prophet _growing up, you know how it is."

"Yeah, but that you would have time for all these people and aren't—I don't know, some rubbish celebrity like Flint, making a scene and—"

Cedric tapped the wireless with the rolled-up pieces of paper. "I'm at no risk of, ah, befriending some of Flint's more notorious companions."

"Much obliged," Oliver said, equally drily. "Sometimes I don't deserve you."

"That's no way to talk—"

"I know, I'm just—"

"You're never going to get your hopes too high, because I will not be giving away Chudley's strategy," Cedric said smugly.

And Oliver relaxed. "Fair dos."


End file.
